Jo-Anne Elder

Acadie is a country which exists in the imagination and words of its people. Its literature is young; its poetry has emerged from sheer experimentation with language -- both in its form and its content. But the poetry of Acadie is more than experimentation: it is also a political expression, an insistence on the very existence of an imaginative country. For this anthology -- the first ever to be published in English -- Fred Cogswell and Jo-Anne Elder have selected poems by Herménégilde Chiasson, Anne Cloutier, France Daigle, Ronald Després, Gérald LeBlanc, Raymond Guy Leblanc, Dyane Léger, Roméo Savoie and more then twenty other poets to put together a collection of the most contemporary of Acadian poetry.

Contemporary Poetry of Acadie

Unfinished Dreams

Colin O’Connell

Canadian Corporation for Studies in Religion

“Every time we raise our voices, we hear echoes.” Jo-Anne Elder, from the Foreword Through short stories, journal entries and poetry, the women in Voices and Echoes explore the changing landscape of their spiritual lives. Experienced writers such as Lorna Crozier, Di Brandt and Ann Copeland, as well as strong new voices, appear to speak to each other as they draw from a wealth of personal resources to find a way to face life’s questions and discover meaning in their lives. There is something familiar about these stories and poems — they echo those we’ve heard before and those we’ve half forgotten. Whether they search for a voice in a world where men monopolize or journey into painful memories to free the self from the past, they do not despair, they do not end. Individual entries become the whole story — an unending story of rebirth and reaffirmation. The book begins with an illuminating foreword that introduces readers to the cultural and philosophical background of many of the stories, and concludes with the reflections of scholars, writers and artists that are intended to provoke further discussion.

Jo-Anne Elder

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